Page 4058 - Week 13 - Thursday, 6 December 2007
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going from memory here, so I would have to confirm these numbers—that within the last week, on the basis of discussions between Roads ACT and the RTA, the RTA indicated that a contract fee for the removal of the trusses, just to take them down so that we could begin the process, would involve a cost of $6.5 million before we get to the restoration of the bridge. That is the nature of the advice that the ACT government received. That is the advice on which I have been responding.
My latest advice is that to restore the bridge as is to a capacity to take 20 tonnes will cost in the order of $10 million. That is my advice. Backing that up is, as I say, my understanding of advice most recently received that just to removes the trusses will cost $6.5 million.
MR SPEAKER: Supplementary question, Mr Pratt?
MR PRATT: Chief Minister, regardless of the advice your minister gave on 14 November, did your minister and/or his departmental officials see that report? If they rejected that report, why?
MR STANHOPE: I simply cannot answer what Mr Hargreaves did or did not see or what his officials did or did not see. I understand that Mr Hargreaves has indicated that he had not seen it.
Mr Pratt: Will you take that on notice?
MR STANHOPE: No, I cannot. You can ask the minister. I can ask the minister for you. Mr Pratt has just asked me did Mr Hargreaves see something. I do not know.
I will answer the question now. I do not know, but my understanding is, from statements Mr Hargreaves has given, that no, he did not. I cannot answer for somebody else. But that is the advice.
Mr Pratt: Would you like to take that on notice, Chief Minister?
MR STANHOPE: No. I will give the answer now. The answer is: I do not know.
Belconnen to Civic busway
MR SESELJA: My question is to the minister for transport. Minister, you and the Chief Minister have, over the past year or so, referred to the millions spent on the flawed Civic to Belconnen busway as simply long-term planning to reserve a transport corridor. Indeed, this week in a press release you said in relation to the work—
MR SPEAKER: Order! Who is the question directed to? We do not have a minister for transport.
MR SESELJA: Sorry, the Minister for Territory and Municipal Services. You said:
This forward planning will allow future Governments to respond to Canberra’s changing transport needs. The same process took place with the Gungahlin Drive Extension in the 1960s.
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